The Time That Rodney Saved John, or dot dot dot
by NewEnglandFan
Summary: Rodney takes extraordinary measures to save an injured Sheppard and himself. Purely an exercise in writing something funny !


**Rated: K+ for a swear word and content. Very tongue-in-cheek. Teeny fixes just now, I realized I left something out.**

The Time that Rodney Saved John, or…..

John: "Rodney, you have to go for help. We can't wait for Lorne's team any longer."

Rodney: "Why not? We've got a pretty good hiding place here."

John: "Because the hostile natives are gonna find us before the good guys do, and they looked kinda hungry."

(Rodney had to agree with that. This so-called tropical paradise hadn't had the Ancient equivalent of a red flag on it in the database for nothing. God, he had to stop assuming that 10,000-year old warnings had expired. It wasn't like they were a gallon of milk. But, scanning from the Jumper as they came through the Space Gate, they had detected a weird energy signal, so…..)

Rodney: "We can go together."

John: "You know I can't. I burned my hands putting out that fire, and blew my knee out dodging that spear. I can hardly hold a gun and I'm basically hopping around like a rabbit."

Rodney: "Well, maybe Sgt. Johnson's team will find us."

John sighed. "No, remember, they drank that stuff they thought was juice, from the medicine man, and now four large Marines think WE'RE the bad guys."

Rodney: "Erm, uh…"

John: "Remember that young guy, the teenager that was hanging around? He liked us, and not in the have-us-as-a-snack way. Find him, and get him to take you to Lorne."

Rodney: "But, he's a primitive native! He barely understood us! How can I possibly communicate to him that-"

John: "Don't make me regret saving your life on our last mission, McKay."

Rodney: "Yeah, but…"

John: "Draw him a picture on the ground with a stick! Do charades! He looked like a smart kid, you're supposedly smart..."

(John got a "Rodney look" for that; ok, he deserved it.)

John: "Great, it's settled. The kid knows that Lorne's team got away, and maybe what direction they were headed. You find the kid, you and the kid find Lorne, and before you know it, he'll rescue us in the nick of time like Dudley Do-Right."

Rodney raised an eyebrow.

John: "You know—Royal Canadian Mounted Police—the cartoon guy that always saves the day?"

Rodney: "I know who he is..."

John: "Hey, I'm complimenting something Canadian." He gave a mock look of hurt.

Rodney: "Ok, well…are you gonna be ok? You have the 9mm, right? "Cause we lost our P-90s."

John: "You take it, McKay."

Rodney: "Oh, crap."

John: "That's my line, Rodney. Get going. Good luck!"

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Rodney crept through the tangle of jungle as quietly as he could. All sorts of nasty things he didn't want to imagine were pulling at his clothes and dripping down his neck.

He headed towards where he thought the young teenage native might be—the stream—_the very far away stream—_where they had met him as he was fishing. Luck was with him, and he saw the boy in the distance. He didn't see anyone else so, sucking up his courage, he broke through the protective foliage and approached. After the boy's noisy greeting and Rodney's frantic shushing, Rodney got down to business. It quickly became apparent that the stick-drawing and charades method was the only way to get through to the boy.

Rodney: "We need help, ok? My friend, Sheppard—with the hair?"—(Rodney mimicked Sheppard-style hair with his own limited supply). "He's hurt"-Rodney made an 'Ow' face—"and I need to get help from our friends, the other soldiers—remember Major Lorne, _LOORRRNNNEEE_?" (Rodney scratched out several figures in the damp sand.) "They had escaped from your camp when it looked like…" (Rodney mimed eating). The boy made a pained face and nodded.

Rodney: "Ok, so you need to get me to Lorne as fast as possible!"

Fifty feet and a badly wrenched ankle later, Rodney was desperate. Goddamn jungle growth hiding those goddamn swampy holes! What was he going to do now? The boy didn't have the verbal skills to get through to Lorne and, for all Lorne knew, the kid wanted to bring them back to his village as dessert. The boy was hovering and looking guilty. Rodney had already used up Plans A, B, and C—talking, drawing and pantomime—now what? He WAS smart—Sheppard's snarkiness to the contrary—and slowly light dawned. _Write _a message that the teenager could deliver_._ Rodney pawed through his vest. The natives had taken a lot of their stuff, though. He found some paper, but nothing to write with. Panic attack. Ok, use big brain again…blood—he could prick his finger and scrawl out a message for the kid to give to Lorne. Pheww. But…what if the kid ran into Sgt. Johnson and the other Marines? Even in their drugged-out state, Rodney was pretty certain they'd still be able to read, and then they'd be after him and Sheppard in no time (and might hurt the young boy). Rodney gloomily considered his dilemma—hot, hurting, surrounded by a tropical misery of bugs and trees and…ugh, what was hanging from that branch! and—he had the answer. It was risky, life-threatening, even, but he owed it to Sheppard and the young native that he'd wrangled into this dangerous drama. He could do it, Rodney thought. He had to.

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Sheppard looked on with concern as Rodney was transferred to the waiting stretcher in the 'Gate room. It had been close, but Lorne's first-aid kit, and the supplies on hand in the Jumper, had done the trick.

John eavesdropped from his own stretcher as Lorne filled in an anxious Colonel Carter. He'd have to let Rodney win (just once, mind you) at remote car racing, as soon as both of them were up and around again.

Lorne: "…and the young man had come up to us in the jungle, very cautious, holding out something like it was as valuable as gold."

Carter: "How on Earth did you figure it out?"

Lorne: "I had a magic kit as a kid, plus a lot of secret agent comic books. Used the matches from the survival kit, and there it was."

Rodney had saved the day, as Dudley might have said. His tropical nightmare was filled with cannibals AND…..citrus. He had been a kid once, despite opinions to the contrary. It was a simple equation: lemon juice + paper + drying time = invisible message, safe enough to send to Lorne and indecipherable by crazed Marines. But once you brushed the heat from a flame over the paper...voila! Rodney had noticed something that looked a little like, and luckily had a chemical structure similar to, an Earth lemon. But the juice had gotten into scratches on his fingers and skin as he'd painted out his S.O.S. The boy had brought Lorne back just in time…

The official mission report would read: The Time that Rodney Saved John, or….How to Administer Lemon-Aid.


End file.
